Euphoria Season 2 Episode 5: Rue’s chaos

Rating: 3.5/5

Story:
Rue suffers withdrawal after her friends and family conduct an intervention and flushes all her pills down the toilet. Rue soon spirals out of control as she runs amuck across the town in search of money and drugs.

Review:
Sam Levinson has taken a huge gamble by making the protagonist, Rue, one of the most despised characters in the story, and possibly just a notch lower than Nate Jacobs. But unlike some of the other episodes this season, the narrative does not delve too much into the tedious love triangle between Nate, Cassie, and Maddy. Instead, it is a far more nuanced episode exploring the pitfalls of drug addiction and how it can leave people traumatised forever.

Zebdeya’s stunning performance solidifies a very engaging screenplay. In retrospect, the episode offers few and far between in terms of story progression, but it is an excellent character study and fleshes out the pain, agony, desperation an addict suffers when experiencing withdrawal symptoms. The viewers are given a first-hand experience of the horrors friends and family of an addict have to go through.

Rue’s character and her motivations are further explored as she finally ends up at the doorstep of the passive-aggressive drug dealer Laurie. This new storyline offers plenty of drama and hopefully, the second season Euphoria can finally kick-start its central narrative for the season. Despite opening the season with arguably one of the best episodes of the entire show, it has somehow withered away and has since showcased some truly questionable creative choices.

The sixth episode has shown signs of recovery for the series. It also deserves praise for the manner in which the narrative has managed to be engrossing despite Rue being one of the most unsympathetic protagonists ever written in recent times. The excellent performances by the supporting cast also help elevate one of the least complex plots of the series. That being said, the themes and visual imagery are far from being complex, and probably one of the few episodes where there appears to be the perfect balance of style and substance.

The overarching narrative still leaves a lot to be desired, but as a self-contained story, it works like a charm. It is also refreshing to note that the cycle of melodrama which began as far as from season one appears to have finally broken, at least for the time being. Kat’s issues with Ethan and the borderline ridiculous love triangles should only be associated with shows such as Riverdale, and not with shows such as Euphoria which is attempting to come off as a complex and well-produced TV series.

Verdict:
Euphoria continues to excel in terms of production value, and for the first time since the opening episode of the sophomore season it has delivered on a riveting episode that has set aside some of the poor creative decisions seen earlier in the season after the first episode.